Leonard Cohen, the legendary rock star, said ti his thousand fans at his concert in Birmingham that the next year he is going to mark his 80th birthday by starting smoking again.

The concert took place LG Arena on Sunday, September 8, and there were presented 14,000 fans. He sang his famous hits I’m Your Man, So Long, Hallelujah, Marianne and left the satage after three encores.

At the beginning of the concert Cohen said to his fans who paid £80 for the tickets:

Thank you for endangering your household budget. It’s been a long time since we’ve been here but I didn’t want to make a nuisance of myself. I promise you, tonight we will give you everything we’ve got.

The 79-year singer wants to smoke his first cigarette on the stage. During the concert which lasted almost three hours, Cohen said:

I hope I stay on the road a little bit longer – but you may not be so enthusiastic when you hear my reason. You see I want to start smoking next year when I’ll be 80. It’s been a long barren time. I think it’s the right age to recommence. I’d like to do it on stage and I’d like to be standing here like this, in front of sympathetic people like yourselves. A nurse would come onto the stage with a silver tray. On that tray would be an open pack of cigarettes – the little cylinders gleaming like the pillars of a great temple.

The nurse in her white uniform would approach him and he would take one cigarette, tap it on silver tray and then nurse would light it up. Cohen will ask if she does not mind tapping out a few of those bubbles in his IV before she goes. Then he would take his first puff and feel so good and relaxed that he would be able to review some of the events of his past, especially his relationship with a woman he regrets having disappointed.